Late September/Early October 2007 News Roundup

This is the first of what will hopefully be a long line of news updates here on the FreeCulture USC Chapter Blog.

Over at Arstechnica there is good coverage of the recent RIAA trial Capitol Records vs. Jammie Thomas. They start on the first day with opening statements, continue with the second day, cover the confusion over the jury requirement that an actual transfer take place, and finally report the verdict. To make a long story short, Thomas lost the case and the jury awarded Capitol Records $222,000 dollars in damages. The best part of the trial? A Sony executive saying that the RIAA’s anti-P2P lawsuits is a money pit, and at the same time admitting that they’ve lost money on the program.

The fight over the 700mhz spectrum is heating up over at the FCC, with Verizon suing the FCC over its open access requirements, Google attacking Verizon over its lawsuit, Frontline asking forcefully for the FCC to bar the Verizon from the auction, and AT&T requesting changes to the public safety requirements. Don’t worry, Microsoft won’t let itself be left out of the fun (more information about white space electronics here). Even Apple looks like it might start getting in on the hot hot 700mhz action.

Amazon.com launched its DRM-free online music store on September 25th, check it out here.

Radiohead is launching its new album “In Rainbows” on October 10th, only online (until december), in DRM-free mp3 format. The kicker? You pay whatever you want for the digital version.

It’s been a mixed month for peer-to-peer sites, with torrentspy disappearing from computers in the US and Demonoid disappearing from computers in Canada. Suprnova, however, is back up!

The Pirate Bay is suing multiple Swedish media companies for “infrastructural sabotage, denial of service attacks, hacking and spamming, all of these on a commercial level.” Good show.